When Ellie Shoja goes for a walk, she slips on her headphones and starts talking—but there’s no other voice ricocheting through the speakers. It’s merely a convenient way to disguise the fact that she’s engrossed in a conversation with herself.
“As far back as I can remember, I’ve talked to myself,” says Shoja, 43, who lives in Los Angeles. “If I’m processing something, I’m 100% talking it out with myself. When I put my earbuds in on my walk, that allows me to gesture and be able to talk a little more loudly, instead of whispering.”
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When Shoja wakes up in the morning or hits the gym, that dialogue turns motivational: “You got this. You can do it.” Throughout the day, she talks out ideas for the writing group she runs, as though she were in conversation with another person; when she makes dinner, she chatters away whether someone else is in the kitchen or not. She credits the habit with helping her achieve a state of calmness and confidence. “It slows down your thinking just by the nature of verbalizing something,” she says. “You have language that limits the amount of chaos, because you have to express it. You become more focused, and your anxiety levels and stress actually lower significantly.”
Shoja is far from alone: Many people talk out loud to themselves—which is commonly called external self-talk or private speech, as opposed to inner speech, which is the silent dialogue running through your mind. Yet as Shoja’s headphone strategy suggests, talking to an internal audience can be associated with a perception of, well, strangeness. We asked experts whether that’s warranted—and what they see as the upside of conversing with yourself.
Why people talk out loud to themselves
Thirty years ago, when Thomas Brinthaupt became a new parent—and was in the thick of long, sleep-deprived days and nights—he started coping by talking out loud to himself. That inspired him to research why people engage in this type of self-talk. A few key reasons have emerged, including social isolation: As you might expect, people who spend lots of time alone are more likely to keep themselves company by chit-chatting out loud. (Brinthaupt’s mother lived by herself, and after he overheard her solo conversations, she told him talking to herself helped her get through the day.) The same goes for only children—who engage in self-talk more frequently than those with siblings—as well as adults who had an imaginary companion they talked to when they were kids.
The other main reason why people talk out loud to themselves is to deal with “situations that are novel or highly stressful, or where you’re not sure what to do or think or feel,” says Brinthaupt, a professor emeritus of psychology at Middle Tennessee State University. Studies have found that when you’re anxious or experiencing, for example, obsessive-compulsive tendencies, you’re much more likely to talk to yourself. Upsetting or disturbing experiences make people want to resolve or understand them—and self-talk is a tool that helps them do so, he says.
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There’s also an age factor involved. Young children talk out loud to themselves as they’re learning social roles, but eventually, that becomes internalized as inner speech. Older adults are particularly likely to engage in self-talk, Brinthaupt says. “Maybe it’s to help them remember, or maybe it’s lowered inhibitions,” he says. “My mom used to say, ‘I don’t care what other people think. I’m talking to myself.’ The rest of us in the middle still have that inhibition. You don’t want to do it too much, because people might question your sanity.”
Are people who talk out loud smarter? Or, well, the inverse? Very limited research has explored the connection, but Brinthaupt did find that college students’ GPA only has weak associations with tendency to engage in self-talk. He points out that GPA isn’t a great measure of intelligence. If he had to guess, he speculates that, on an “extreme level,” people with genius-level IQ levels might engage in higher levels of self-talk than others. But overall, “I think intelligence doesn’t really matter,” he says. Still, he notes that it would be interesting to research how self-talk content (are your convos with yourself positive or negative?) and function (why do you do it?) vary among people with different IQ levels.
Is it a good thing?
Talking out loud to yourself is perfectly normal—and even beneficial. It can facilitate problem-solving and improve how well you perform at a task, says Gary Lupyan, a psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has researched self-talk. One of his studies involved asking people to search for different objects, like a picture of a fork among a set of random photographs. When participants said the name of what they were looking for out loud, they were able to find it much faster than when they didn’t. “The idea is that it helps keep its visual appearance active in your mind as you’re searching,” he says. That means if you lose your car keys, it might be helpful to chant “keys, keys, keys” to yourself as you dash around the house looking for them.
Self-talk can be motivating, too, Lupyan points out. In one study, basketball players performed faster and better when they talked through their moves out loud in an encouraging or instructional way. It can also help keep you focused, especially in a situation that requires lots of different steps. “Language is good at sequencing things,” he says. “It helps people stay on task and know when to switch.”
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Brinthaupt, meanwhile, thinks of self-talk as a thermostat—a tool that can help you adjust the temperature of your daily emotions. Talking to yourself can help guide you to your goals and provide valuable feedback, he says. You might use self-talk to criticize yourself, pat yourself on the back, figure out what you need to do next, or analyze a difficult task. Maybe you talk out loud when you’re practicing what to say before you meet someone for the first time—or if you regret what you said during that encounter, you might pump yourself back up afterwards, reminding yourself that there will be a next time.
Talking out loud can be a way to let off steam, too. The classic example, Brinthaupt says, is audibly swearing, which can act like a release that helps you feel better. There can also, surprisingly, be a social aspect—in which case self-talk blurs the line between intrapersonal and interpersonal communication. “It’s a way to let other people directly or indirectly know what we’re thinking or feeling,” he says. “I might talk to myself out loud to let my wife know that I’m really ticked off or frustrated. I’m talking to myself, but I know she’s around and will hear that, and she might respond and we could talk about it.”
Uses in therapy—and beyond
Gabrielle Morse, a therapist in New York, often encourages her clients to talk out loud to themselves. In addition to helping people better regulate their emotions, she finds it promotes mindfulness by increasing self-awareness. It also tends to slow down her clients’ thoughts, just like journaling would. “I acknowledge it might feel funny or unnatural, but people seem to be really open to it,” she says. “We have thousands and thousands of thoughts a day, and they’re just neural firings—they’re so random. Talking out loud can really help regulate and self-soothe and monitor your stream of thought.”
Morse uses skills from dialectical behavior therapy, and one of them is talking to yourself as though you’re your own wise coach. For example: “I have everything I need to get through this.” She also helps clients craft coping statements for anxiety. That might mean repeating out loud, “I’m OK. This feels really scary, but I’m not in any imminent danger.” Or: “This isn’t going to last forever. I can feel unpleasant and safe at the same time.” Anxious thoughts can easily overpower logic, she points out, so verbalizing these statements can help take you out of your own head, especially when you’re experiencing intense emotions.
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That resonates with Stephanie Crain, who talks out loud to herself—as well as her dogs, her pet snake, her chickens, and the air—all day, every day. She has post-traumatic stress disorder and believes self-talk is a coping mechanism. When she starts to become anxious, she finds it helps her self-soothe; it also keeps her feeling connected and engaged when she’s alone.
Plus, it’s fun: Crain, 55, who lives in Austin, often speaks in rhyme or breaks into song: “Taking care of chickens, every day! Taking care of chickens, every way!” “It’s giving yourself permission to be playful and expressive when literally nobody’s watching,” she says. “It keeps my mind stimulated, and helps me test what’s in my head in a real-world setting.” She thinks of her self-talk habit as a valuable gift and resource that she can tap into any time she wants. Her four-legged friends don’t seem to mind, either. “My experience is that all creatures respond to joyful energy.”
Shoja, the headphone-wearing self-talker, hopes more people start to reconsider their preconceptions around self-talk. “We’ve made a decision somehow that talking to yourself is kind of cuckoo,” she says. But in reality, there’s great power in extricating all the thoughts and ideas jumbled up inside you and stringing them together into words and sentences meant for your own ears. “It allows you to feel seen by yourself,” she says, “and when that happens, you can allow others to see you.”